I’ve never spent more than a few weeks holiday in other parts of the world, so being married to a Brazilian for the past 18 months has been very eye-opening in terms of my British/English-ness.

HRH spends a lot of her time laughing at ‘us’ or with a look of disbelief on her face at some of the cultural differences.

Her favourite one is the English obsession with time, schedules, planning … to her it seems like everything must be planned weeks in advance with a very specific start and end time and very specific details of who’s invited … cracks her up and drives her nuts at the same time.

Her favourite one is the English obsession with time, schedules, planning … to her it seems like everything must be planned weeks in advance with a very specific start and end time and very specific details of who’s invited … cracks her up and drives her nuts at the same time.

this. My OH needs everything locked down well in advance, and flat refuses to just drop in on people if we’re in the area. Thinks it’s rude- she’s not even keen on calling them up and saying we’re close by.

My Chinese wife doesn’t get puddings but she knows Brits like them. So when my Mum came over she bought cake and custard thinking that’s what she’d want.

She isn’t very sentimental. Many Mums like collecting bits of their babies – hair the 1st time it’s cut or whatever. She just bins everything and I had to rescue the 1st paintings my son came home from nursery with as wife thought them a bit rubbish and can’t see why we’d keep them.

mugsys_m8, you forget how I just don’t get that people can ignore the elephant in the room and how most people seem to be so strung up about how much money they have and can show.

There are many things to be annoyed about you French, but these are two of the reasons I like you all so much..!

In France:

“How much was your new house”
“500,000”
“Pff. You paid too much”

In Britain:

“So, do you mind me asking how much you paid?”
“Well, the market was so strong that everyone was going in at least 20% over the asking price. It’s the only way to get Timmy into the right school.”
“Tell me about it, it was the same when we bought the new Range Rover – why wait, we thought. Let’s just put it on the remortgage”

Mrs 10pmix is Spanish. She thinks that the British are all incredibly anal and rule focused. I can live with that after spending too many times queuing at the Spanish Embassy trying to get someone to even give us the time of day (we made the mistake of getting married in New York which they didn’t like at all).

What I can’t live with is her complete hatred of all British comedy. She called Monty Python “70’s rubbish” and just last night said Blackadder was “for old people”. Its grounds for divorce…..

We have Spanish TV in the house. If you’ve even seen that Fast Show Channel 9 entertainment show spoof where the host is dressed as a sailor, Paul Whitehouse comes on a comedy painter and decorator saying “slippy slop” over and over to rapturous applause… that is Spanish tv.

My eastern European friend is somewhat perplexed by why we don’t use our women more. “It took me ages to get around to the fact that I couldn’t just tell my female flatmates that I wanted a sandwich and have them bring it to me” 😯

Mrs O is from the Philippines – the attitude to time there probably makes the Brazilians look quite uptight! To her absolute credit though she has adapted well to my endless terror that I might one day be 2 seconds late for something, although she is amused by it. We’ve got to the point now where going back home for her can be quite frustrating.

She did ask me early on in our relationship why I bothered stopping at roundabouts in the car and didn’t just continue regardless; I made her have lessons!

But importantly she regularly quotes bits of Python AND finds Father Ted hysterical. So that’s all good.

If you think that the brits don’t say what they’re really thinking then you should try scandinavia. nobody ever says what they really think for fear of causing some sort of conflict.
conflict must be avoided at all costs (hence the high suicide and divorce rate if you ask me!)

When presented with a roast dinner a Dutch girlfriend I had put a roast potato on her fork and asked ” what it this?” The bloody heathen then needed to know what a Yorkshire was as well.
And this from a girl who had hundreds and thousands on toast for breakfast
My mates Spanish girlfriend told her neighbour that she could hear their faeces plopping. She always has had trouble saying fishes.